


This is Fate

by stevesnosebump



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: (mentioned) - Freeform, Boys In Love, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Established Relationship, Fluff, Gentle Kissing, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pet Names, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Public Display of Affection, italics and em dashes everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29958135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevesnosebump/pseuds/stevesnosebump
Summary: Now that they live in a century where they can love each other without fear, Bucky loves indulging in a bit of PDA. That makes Steve blush. A lot.(plus musings on how fate brought them together again)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	This is Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [loving you is easy as an ice cream sundae](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29764959) by [stevebuckiest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevebuckiest/pseuds/stevebuckiest). 



> wrote this super self-indulgent fic to cope <3 hope you enjoy!

Bucky’s intense stare forces Steve to break their eye contact, his cheeks and the tips of his ears quickly flushing a light pink. Bucky reaches across the table to take one of Steve’s hands in his flesh one. 

“Why are you hiding that pretty face from me, doll?” Bucky teases with a smirk gliding over his lips as he leans forward, keeping his voice low. 

“I’m not,” he mumbles, the blush on his cheeks deepening. He sinks into his seat, trying to make himself as small as possible—which is difficult for a man who’s 6’2” tall and 240 pounds of muscle, but right now, he almost looks as small as he did before the serum.

He’s playing dumb, but Bucky knows exactly why Steve is suddenly so shy. The blush had started covering his face as soon as Bucky had spooned a bit of pie in Steve’s mouth so he could taste the flavor Bucky had picked out for himself. 

Although Bucky never goes overboard with it, public affection still makes Steve a little shy, no matter how small of a gesture it is. He still can’t believe that they’re living in an era where they can feed one another and hold hands or kiss in public—they can even get legally  _ married  _ someday—all things that were completely out of the picture back when they first fell in love at sixteen and seventeen, reckless boys living in Brooklyn in the ‘40s and trying to love one another at a time when it was too dangerous to do in public.

But here they are in the 21st century, sitting across from one another in a diner in their beloved Brooklyn, feeding each other and holding hands. They get to do it all in plain view now, no more dark corners in the park or hasty stolen kisses in shady alleyways—just this table next to the window where the sun floods in and illuminates their love for everyone in the diner to see. 

“You don’t want me touching you?” Bucky teases, slowly removing his hand from Steve’s and laughing when the blond grabs it again, moving their hands back to their original position atop the table. 

“I do, Buck,” he says earnestly, avoiding eye contact by staring at their joined hands instead, letting a content sigh leave his lips when Bucky gently strokes his hand with his thumb. “I’m just...I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it,” he uses his free hand, the right one, to motion to their hands. “Being able to do these things in public. I’m glad we can—it was all I’d ever hoped for back then—but it’s…” he trails off, struggling to find the word that could accurately portray how he feels.

“Different,” Bucky finishes for him—it’s still not the right word (they’ll probably never be able to figure out the word that can accurately convey the feeling), but it at least shows that Bucky understands exactly what Steve means. Things are different now. That’s a good thing, but it’s still difficult not to revert back to old habits: Steve instinctually pulling his hand away when Bucky reaches for it, keeping their touches brief and inconspicuous, feeling like the room is closing in on him when Sam or Nat tease them about their relationship. 

“Yeah,” Steve sighs, grateful that Bucky always understands how he’s feeling. “Different.” 

“I understand. I can hardly believe how much times have changed either. But,” he leans forward again, lowering his voice so only Steve can hear his words. “Embrace it. Now we can do everything we couldn’t even dream of doing in public together back then, all the things the straight couples did that we would’ve gotten killed for. Let me love on you, sunshine. I’ve been waiting for this stuff for years.” He emphasizes his point by squeezing Steve’s hand before lifting it to his lips and pressing a soft kiss to the knuckles. 

Steve shyly smiles as he returns the gesture, lifting Bucky’s hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to it. “Okay. I’m learning to,” he mumbles, leaning into the touch when Bucky softly strokes his cheek. 

He doesn’t pull away when Bucky leans forward to kiss him (which is rare, since usually he’ll protest the act with a  _ “No, Buck, not in public!”  _ in a whiny voice, pulling his face away or pushing at his lover’s chest), and the two of them get to enjoy a quick yet loving kiss without even worrying about who might see them and what they might think. The kiss is short—Bucky enjoys a bit of PDA, but he hates to go overboard with it—and the dorky smile on Steve’s face has Bucky’s lips tugging into the same dorky grin, oddly giddy from the small gesture. 

“Come on,” Bucky leans back in his seat again, lightly rasping his knuckles on the table. “Let’s finish up so we can head home.” 

They finish eating their pies, Bucky only interrupting Steve to wipe the cream off his chin with the thumb of his flesh hand (Steve can be a bit of a messy eater sometimes, but Bucky finds that endearing). 

“Ready to go, doll?” 

“Yeah,” he smiles at the waitress, who had arrived just at time to take their plates and hand them the check. “Let me pay this time,” he tells Bucky when the waitress walks away to tend to her other tables.

Bucky, who was already reaching into his pocket to grab his wallet, raises his eyebrows inquisitive at the request. He doesn’t pay every time they go out, but he does have a habit of quickly grabbing the check and paying before Steve can even protest. 

“Alright,” Bucky clicks his tongue. “Go ahead and pay then. Let’s get home,” the fact that Bucky doesn’t put up a fight surprises Steve, but he’s glad that Bucky is letting him pay. He always feels a little guilty when Bucky pays (which he typically does with a wink and smug smirk,  _ “my treat, darling”).  _

“Ready?” Steve asks after the waitress picks up their paid check and tells them to have a good evening. 

Bucky groans, clearly feeling full now (the dessert after the hearty meal was pushing it, but it was so worth it), but confirms that he’s ready to leave nonetheless with a nod as he gets up and grabs Steve’s hand. They walk out of the diner in comfortable silence, feeling the cool evening breeze on their skin and watching the slowly setting sun as they walk home. 

Holding hands in public is another adjustment for the two of them—it doesn’t make Steve blush as deeply as he does when Bucky shows him other kinds of affection in public, but it’s a gesture that Steve is always aware of when it happens. Back then, they had to be really careful. Even their hands merely brushing against one another would have been enough to cause a stir in those days. Now, they can openly interlock hands as they walk down the street together without fearing what some passerby might think or do about it. 

Bucky lightly squeezes Steve’s hand, knowing exactly what his boyfriend is thinking about. 

“Hey, Buck?” 

“Yeah?” 

Steve stops and slowly lets go of Bucky’s hand, turning to face him and moving to the side a bit so they’re not taking up too much of the sidewalk. “I’ve already told you this a million times, but...I’m just thinking, I’m really glad that we both ended up here—despite the circumstances being less than ideal,” he chews on his bottom lip, trying not to think about all the horrors Bucky faced all those years as a victim of HYDRA. He hates to think about the decades of torture he had experienced at their hands while Steve was under the ice. There’s nothing he can do about it now—and there wasn’t anything he could’ve done about it back then, either, but the thought of it still makes him feel a painful pang of guilt. “I’m glad that we’re here, in this new century, and can do the things we dreamed of doing back then but couldn’t. Like this,” he had wanted to emphasize the statement by kissing Bucky on the lips, right there in front of all those strangers, but when the moment came, he could only manage to peck Bucky on the cheek—the point still stands, since kissing another man on the cheek hadn’t been accepted back then, either, but...he was planning on kissing his boyfriend where it really mattered, right on his lips. He’s just a bit shy. 

“I know,” Bucky brings his right hand up to cup Steve’s cheek, resting his metal one on Steve’s lower back, pulling him in a bit more. “I hope I don’t make you uncomfortable when I...you know. I just feel like we’ve missed out on so much over the years…”

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” Steve emphasizes his point with a firm shake of his head. “I love it, I really do. It’s just new to me. I don’t think I’ll ever not be…” he trails off, bringing a hand up to tuck the strand of hair that had slipped out of Bucky’s bun behind his ear as he tries to find the words to finish his sentence. “....amazed by all the things we can do now. Remember when you took me to the park for Valentine’s Day, and we had to sit in a dark corner of the park and pray that no one would hear us and check to see what we were up to? Or when we went to Coney Island and snuck a kiss at the top of the ferris wheel, and I knew no one could have possibly seen us but I was still shaking with fear when we got off the ride, waiting for some big man to angrily confront us?” 

“Yeah. I remember,” Bucky’s smile is genuine but also a bit sad. It seems like all their good times from back then are tinged with that ugly fear of what everyone else would think or say or  _ do.  _ Despite that, he’s grateful that he can even genuinely say he remembers those times. HYDRA stole so much from him, but they couldn’t take his little Stevie away. 

Steve kisses Bucky on the lips this time, smiling into the kiss. The kiss lasts a little longer than they would typically allow such a public display to last, but this situation calls for more than a little peck. They’ve overcome so many odds to be together. 

Steve buries his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck once they break away from the kiss. He’s blushing again—Bucky always makes him blush so damn easily—and he chuckles thinking about how ridiculously sappy they must look to the people walking by. 

“Come on,” Bucky ruffles his hair as they end their embrace. “Let’s get home, huh?” 

They hold hands again, keeping them firmly interlocked for the whole walk home. 

Despite all the hell it took to get to this century and find each other again, they’re both thankful for it. Keeping their relationship such a firmly wrapped secret was a struggle for them, and both of them had hated how they couldn’t scream it from the rooftops like other couples could just because they were both men. Now, they don’t have to hide it from the world. Steve doesn’t know how fate works, but he thinks it’s impossible to deny that they were destined to be together at a time where two men could openly love one another. Getting there wasn’t easy or fair, but it was fate. 

He smiles and lightly bumps his shoulder against Bucky’s own when he feels Bucky squeeze his hand again. 

“What are you thinking about, sunshine?” 

Steve turns his head to look at Bucky, can’t help the grin that immediately spreads over his face when he sees him, his brown hair coming loose in his bun, five o’clock shadow lightly covering his jaw. 

“Oh, you know,” Steve sheepishly shrugs. “You. Us.” 

“Right,” Bucky playfully rolls his eyes at the vague answer, but the wide grin on his lips gives him away. 

“Do you believe in fate?” 

“I mean, how could I not?” he swings their hands, letting the gesture elaborate on the statement for him. 

He nods, satisfied by the short answer. He believes in fate now, too. It’s what brought them back together, it’s what allowed the two of them to hold hands and kiss in public without hiding it today. 

Steve brings Bucky’s hand up to his lips, kissing it for the second time that day. 

They both spend the rest of their walk home thinking about that little word,  _ fate,  _ and how it led to them being able to walk by places they recognize from their past (well, the places that haven’t been horrifically gentrified, and the ones that miraculously survived the hard-hitting impact of the Great Depression ravaging the economy) hand in hand, no longer afraid of who might see them. 

Bucky stops Steve in front of the door to their shared apartment, cupping his face with both hands (Steve lightly shivers at the touch of cool metal on his skin, but recovers quickly with a smile). He gently kisses the bump of Steve’s nose—one of his favorite places to kiss him, since he feels oddly attached to the mark because he knows he caused it that day he accidentally broke Steve’s nose, and not even the serum could heal it. Because Steve’s nose is already perfect, because the mark Bucky has made on him can’t be erased—and the gesture makes Steve smile and look away. 

“I love you,” Bucky smiles, opening the door to the apartment and motioning for Steve to walk in first. 

Steve wraps his arms around Bucky’s neck before kissing him, his earlier thoughts about fate still racing through his head. “I love you, Buck,” he breaks away from the kiss to tell him before pulling him in again. 

Despite not being fully used to it yet, he loves Bucky’s public displays of affection. 

**Author's Note:**

> "but Steve told Nat-" HE'S A BIG STINKY LIAR! HE SAID THAT BECAUSE HE DIDN'T WANT HER TO KISS HIM! HE'S FAITHFUL TO HIS MAN! 
> 
> thank you for reading!! hope u enjoyed I just needed to think about these sweet sweet boys being in love :)  
> included a few references to fics/little details included in fics I have written before so if u regularly read my fics and caught that....iloveuthemostest
> 
> happy birthday bucko! I didn't realize I would be posting this on such a special day :o


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